Probably the only thing most people care to know about their gurgling inner organs is that they are functioning properly. But for Jean-Pierre Barral, an osteopath practicing in Grenoble, France, the body's vital viscera are like a beautifully complicated timepiece, each part in subtle but perpetual motion relative to the others. "In a single day, your internal organs move 30,000 times," he says. "Your liver alone travels 600 meters."

Problems arise, according to Barral, when a trauma or malfunction puts the mechanism out of alignment. "An organ that loses its mobility can throw the whole organism out of whack," he says....